Stopped icloud and did upgrade on M2 macmini to Tahoe 26.4 1 Now Desktop has disappeared.

[Donna Shelley]

I got out of my $12 icloud subscription today and then went and upgraded my Tahoe to 26.4.1.  Well when it restarted I had nothing on my desktop.  All my business, etc. was there in one way or another and now it’s not showing anything…just pretty wallpaper.  How do I get my previous files on my desktop back???  

[Marilyn Peretti]

following

Marilyn Peretti
515 N. Main St, 1B-S
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
    

On Friday, April 17, 2026 at 02:30:21 PM CDT, Donna Shelley <genr...@gmail.com> wrote:

I got out of my $12 icloud subscription today and then went and upgraded my Tahoe to 26.4.1.  Well when it restarted I had nothing on my desktop.  All my business, etc. was there in one way or another and now it’s not showing anything…just pretty wallpaper.  How do I get my previous files on my desktop back???  

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[Donna Shelley]

So I tried changing settings around on several things, not knowing which were needed or not, then I re-uped the icloud account at $2.99 instead of $12 to see if that was what caused the 

problem.  Nope, got the bill from Apple, but the desktop is still bare…so that wasn’t it. I did find a folder callled “desktop” in some menu under my name (donnashelley) with all of the stuff that I 

had had on the desktop.  I wonder if I should pull out all the things from that folder out onto the present desktop.  Not sure what to do because I don’t want to overly duplicate data…and when I pull stuff out

or take a screenshot every file goes up in the top right corner and they pile one on top of the other…not spaced out on the desktop.  What a pain.  In waiting mode right now to see what happens next.

[Donna Shelley]

here’s some info I asked the ai about what’s going on….so far nothing works tho.

[Donna Shelley]

I decided to reinstall Tahoe in recovery mode at 1 in the morning.  It’s now 4 a.m.  And I put my password in and it looked just as it did before the reinstall.  So I tried to move the icons of the stuff I did manage to pull out on the desktop previously.   Everything snapped back in its stack.  So I went to the top of my screen and went under “view”.  I probably should have tried that before…or maybe I did but don’t remember,  and it said USE STACKS.  So I uncllicked that and found that I could move my stuff around the desktop again.  I guess what I’ll do is go to my “desktop” in “donnashelley” and pull everything out individually as I need it. See pt 2

[Jim Rietz]

This is normal... 

When you have the Desktop and Documents folder stored on iCloud (it's an option), where should Apple put the data inside those folders when you stop the service? They are moved into a folder named Archives (+ date or number) on the root directory of your drive. If you find multiple Archive folders, you've done this before. The root directory is the top level - usually Macintosh HD / YourName / .

Jim

Begin forwarded message:

[Donna Shelley]

Yes, I did see that and am glad to know that’s really a “thing” that happens with the icloud stuff.  Looking for any advice in removing myself from icloud control.  Appreciate the input, thanks Jim!